Superlatively Rude

Over the summer, I enrolled on a little online course called the Superlatively Rude Summer School.

If that sounds familiar, that’s either because 1) you were enrolled on it yourself, 2) you saw me talk about it relentlessly on Twitter, or 3) you’ve seen the short stories I’ve posted written because of that very course.

Millie swallowed down the pill with a big gulp. She could feel the cold water trickle down her chest and land in the pit of her stomach.

“You may experience some nausea and dizziness for the first few weeks,” the doctor had said, “but that will pass. Some people experience a loss of sex drive, but symptoms are different for everyone.”

Even less of a drive than I already have? Lucky me, she had thought to herself. She turned the pill packet over and read the back: take once a day with food. She feebly picked at the sandwich she had made earlier to satiate the numb feeling in her stomach that she supposed was hunger. She barely felt the tingle of mustard on her tongue when she bit into it; nothing tasted quite like it did before.

Miles and Erin crouched over the hatch, staring at it in bewilderment. They never expected to find something like this when they were sent up to clean out the attic.

“It’s unlike anything I ever imagined,” Miles coughed. Dust particles were still dancing in the stale air from when they pried open the door of this mystery opening. A whole set of radio broadcasting equipment, right up here in Erin’s grandpa’s attic.

I stepped into the windowless, grey cube and thought, ‘Is this where the bright future of tomorrow is learning to fix the world? How depressing.’ But I wasn’t here to learn; I was here to audition for a low-budget university play. Though I may as well have been auditioning for the West End, for the amount of butterflies trying to escape my stomach.